Alina Bárbara López: "Dictatorship is a gentle term for the aberration that this system represents."

The Cuban intellectual, historian, and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández published a powerful statement on Facebook this Friday while sharing a Cubalex alert regarding the case of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara: "Dictatorship is a gentle term for the aberration that this system represents."

In her Facebook post, López added a significant historical argument: "Fighters from the struggle against Batista tell me that they were saved many times by ethical jurists in the Emergency Courts of that dictatorship."

The comparison highlights a stark contrast: while there were independent lawyers and minimal procedural guarantees in the courts during the Batista era that allowed some opposition members to be saved, the current Cuban judicial system—where lawyers can only practice in state-controlled firms and where the courts operate in coordination with State Security—offers not even those minimal guarantees.

López's statement directly addresses the situation of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, an artist and activist whose sentence of five years was completely served on July 9, 2026, yet he remains detained without a criminal charge.

Two days before the end of his sentence, on July 7, State Security agents took him out of the maximum-security prison in Guanajay and transferred him to an unknown location. Amnesty International and Cubalex described this situation as forced disappearance.

The only contact Otero Alcántara had with his family was a brief call on July 9, made from a State Security phone with an agent on speaker.

Cubalex formally submitted a habeas corpus request on July 13 to the People's Municipal Court of Havana. The legal deadline of 72 hours to issue a resolution expired on July 16 without a response; the authorities only stated that the document was "under processing."

Human rights organizations report that the delay is part of a coordinated strategy by State Security: prolonging legal timelines to force the release contingent upon a permanent exit from the country, so that if Otero leaves Cuba before a ruling is issued, authorities could declare the appeal "denied" or "unfounded," claiming that the deprivation of liberty ceased due to "voluntary decision."

López concluded his statement with a direct demand: "Freedom for Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and for every compatriot imprisoned for political reasons! Freedom for Cuba!"

The Matanzas intellectual, who has been under house arrest and detained multiple times by the regime, had already labeled the July 11 —the fifth anniversary of the 11J protests— the Díaz-Canel government as a "terrorist state against its own people," demanding a general amnesty for the more than 1,250 political prisoners recorded by Prisoners Defenders.

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has activated Urgent Measure AU No. 2357/2026, with a deadline of July 25 for Cuba to report on the whereabouts of Otero Alcántara.